High Availability Center of Competency

Achieve the highest levels of availability from the systems
supporting critical processes

Extract the highest levels of availability from the systems infrastructures that support mission-critical business processes

The High Availability Center of Competency (HACoC) team is dedicated to helping clients achieve their end-to-end IT service availability goals. As a world-wide hub of IT availability expertise, our center supports client and IBM understanding of how to extract the highest levels of availability from the systems infrastructures that support client mission-critical business processes. To this end we:

provide clients with high-availability assessments of their IT Infrastructures.

serve as the single point of contact for high-availability resources within IBM.

serve as a single point of reference for IBM systems high-availability best practices.

Value of HaCoC

The HACoC acts as a trusted advisor to clients seeking to improve the availability and resiliency of their end-to-end IT infrastructure. It draws from technology and systems management expertise across IBM and the industry and brings them together with client experts in collaborative, onsite or remote settings. Jointly, experts review the client’s current or future technology deployments and service management processes and define a road map of steps to take to move closer to stated availability and disaster recovery targets (e.g. RPO and RTO goals).

The HACoC draws upon a broad mix of technology and systems management skill, to provide High Availability expertise on IBM and non-IBM systems and middleware. The IBM systems we most frequently work with are:

IBM systems platforms: System z and the zEnterpise System, IBM Power Systems as well as System i and iSeries, System p and pSeries, and System x and xSeries with various combinations of AIX, z/OS, zVM, zLinux, i5/OS, Linux and Microsoft® Windows® operating environments

IBM System Storage and TotalStorage and business partner networking and storage solutions

These engagements include high-level assessments of the client IT infrastructures (systems, storage, middleware) and the service management processes supporting a mission critical business process. In one to two-day workshops, IBM and client IT leaders and experts collaborate in several assessment activities. The output is a roadmap of recommended tactical and strategic steps to take to improve the availability of the business service running on the end-to-end infrastructure. The two most frequently executed offerings are:

This collaborative two-day workshop helps assess gaps in the IT infrastructure architecture and Service Management processes supporting a critical business application. The environment under review, defined by the critical application, can include multiple systems, storage, and the systems software stack. This engagement can be customized to take into account non-IBM products.

Our team facilities this collaborative two-day workshop to help assess gaps in the IT infrastructure architecture and service management processes supporting a critical business application. The environment under review, defined by the critical application, includes a single platform, storage and key software components. This engagement can be customized to take into account non-IBM products..

A one day on-site working session that builds upon the findings of an Availability QuickCheck to develop a roadmap of steps-to-take to reach the client’s availability goals. HACoC online QuickChecks surveys exist for each of the IBM server and storage systems and for virtualization and Availability Management. In the Whiteboarding Session, an HACoC expert collaborates with customer experts to map the best way forward. As appropriate, the final report may include a description of IBM products, services, education, and documentation to help implement the recommendations.

Other workshops (Europe only)

Our team facilitates this one-to-two day onsite management level seminar to address strategic action plans to improve HA/DR. IBM availability experts will work with customer managers/architects to collaborate on the analysis and development of a proposed action plan.

This workshop is designed to assist clients who are in the early stages of designing a high availability solution with their local IBM team. This includes a two-day workshop that takes place at IBM Montpellier.